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Overview of The Defusing
Process

r Introduction

In the last chapter we
discussed the nature ofanger, hostile behaviour
and abusive behaviour. Inthis chapter we provide
you with some basicprinciples regarding
defusing hostility. In thenext chapter, we will
get even more specific andprovide you with specific
language to use, andother defusing techniques.

Before we do that, let's
do a little review of thekey points in the last
chapter.

r Review

1. At times parents and
members of the public aregoing to be angry,
and you need to recognize that they have a right
to be upset or angry.

2. People do NOT have
the right to be abusive or manipulative.

3. You need to focus your
attention on techniquesto reduce the amount
of hostile behaviour aimedat you. If these
techniques cause the other person to feel less angry,
that's great, but thatisn't something
you can control.

5. Hostile and abusive
behaviour is learned at avery young age, and
everyone has learned how to doit.

6. Hostile people will
dangle bait in front of you. The first step to
avoiding escalation of thesesituations is to not
take the bait.

7. The rules of the hostile
"game" say that whenattacked, you are
EXPECTED to respond defensively,or by counter-attacking.
When you do so you playthe game according to
the attacker's rules, and youwill lose.

8. While angry people
want their problems solved,they will also
respond positively if you:

9. Hostile situations
can escalate very quickly. One key to defusing
is to control theinteraction from square
one, and avoid doing things that will
cause the escalation cycle tocontinue.

r The CARP System
- A Master Strategy

The CARP system is simply
a way to remind yourselfabout the four major
parts of the defusing process. It is what we call an
umbrella strategy.

The CARP process is shown
on page 37. When youlook at the diagram,
apart from the picture of thegoldfish, you will notice
that each letter of"CARP" stands for a different
part of the process. The four parts are:

C ontrolA cknowledgeR efocusP roblem-solve

Let's go through these
one by one.

r Control

When you communicate with
an irate person, theywill often "take the
floor", refusing to listen toyou. Often, they
will take a verbally attackingposition, peppering you
with questions, or insults,and not letting you get
a word in edgewise. Thisis particularly pronounced
on the phone, but alsooccurs in person.
Some have characterized thebehaviour of the irate
person as "ranting".

In addition to the verbal
behaviour of the irateperson, they may use
non-verbal behaviour tointimidate, anger, or
otherwise make you feeluncomfortable.
They may move into your space,stare, and glare, and
attempt to use height totheir advantage. As we
have said before, the otherperson attempts to control
the interaction, bycausing you to become
defensive, angry oroff-balance.

So, your first goal in
the defusing process is togain control over the
interaction. You need to getthe person to the point
where they are willing tostop talking and listen.
If they don't stop their"rant", there is not
much chance of a positiveoutcome. You may
also need to control theinteraction non-verbally,
so that the person stopsusing non-verbal intimidation
tactics to put youoff balance.

As you will see when we
talk about specific ways ofcontrolling the interaction,
we want to be assubtle as possible in
reasserting control. Tellinga someone to "get out
of my face" is not likely towork very well.

The key in reasserting
control is to behave in waysthat send the subtle
sub-message "Your techniquesare not going to work
on me".

While we will get into
specific techniques later,now would be a good time
to provide you with anexample of how one public
servant was able tore-assert control of
a hostile interaction. Whilethis isn't an example
from the world of education,it is such a good example,
for many reasons, that Ihave included it here.

Picture a government office.
Since the branchdeals directly with the
public, it has astorefront. It
looks much like a bank, wherepeople line up and are
served at a wicket.

Mr. Jones walks in, and
after waiting in line,arrives at the wicket.
He asks for what he wantsand the employee, Fred,
informs the client that hemust fill in a series
of forms, and provide somedocuments (ie. birth
certificate, etc). Mr. Jonesstarts getting angrier
and angrier, and says:

"Why the hell didn't anyone
tell me about thisbefore. You want
me to spend the next hour fillingout your damn forms,
and on top of that I need abirth certificate...why
the heck can't I just usemy driver's licence.
You guys are so stupid andinefficient...I am sick
of having my tax moneysupport your inefficiency."

Fred, replies

"Sir, I know it's frustrating,
but we can't processyour application without
the forms being filled outand the birth certificate.
Why don't you just fillout the forms?"

This doesn't help at all,
and Mr. Jones continueson.

"Because I have better
things to do with my time,it's too bad you don't.
You know what you can dowith your F***** forms?
You can take them andshove em where the sun
don't shine". [Actually heused more graphic language].

Fred replies:

"Mr. Jones, I would love
to oblige you on that, butunfortunately, I have
five file folders, six otherforms and a large filing
cabinet up there, andquite honestly, I don't
think that there is roomfor much more".

Mr. Jones stops talking
for a moment. When herealizes what the employee
has said, his jaw drops. Then after a second or
two, he starts laughing. Fred joins in.

Mr. Jones says:

"Look, I'm sorry.
I'm having a bad day, and Idon't mean to take it
out on you. Do I really haveto do all this?"

Fred replies:

"I know you are frustrated,
but yes, we need theforms done. Can
I make a suggestion as to how youmight do this as quickly
as possible, so you don'tspend anymore time than
necessary?"

Mr. Jones replies:

"Yeah, OK."

r Quick Analysis

Notice what happened here.
Fred, using humour,stunned Mr. Jones into
giving up the floor. Heused humour to surprise
and defuse the hostileperson's anger.
In the "Food For Thought" sectionat the end of the chapter,
we will ask you a fewquestions to further
explore the technique used. The important thing to
note is that Fred gainedcontrol of the interaction
so that he could move onto a more productive
discussion.

r Acknowledge

The A in CARP stands for
acknowledge. Remember itis important that the
angry person see that youunderstand his/her emotional
state, and thesituation. So,
when we talk about acknowledging,we are talking about
two major techniques, empathyand active listening.The key point here is
that a person's anger willtend to diminish if the
person feels you understandthem. Again, we
will talk about ways that work andways that don't when
we get to specific techniques.

r Refocus

The R in CARP refers to
refocus. When a person isangry, that anger interferes
with your ability towork with the person
quickly and effectively. Thecontrol and acknowledge
components are designed tocalm the person down
somewhat. Refocusing involvesmaking the transition
from dealing with emotions todealing with the actual
problem.

Note the sequence. We
do not attempt to deal withthe problem until we
have dealt with the feelingsfirst. This is
VERY important.

r Problem-Solve

The P in CARP stands for
problem-solving.

Before we move to problem-solving,
we look to seethat the person is becoming
more cooperative, lessemotional, and more rational.
Refocusing providesthe transition to "getting
down to business"Problem-solving involves
actions like getting andgiving information, suggesting
possibilities andappearing helpful,
offering choices as available,agreeing on a course
of action, and followingthrough.

r Important Points

The sequence of the CARP
system is important. While you may try to
gain control and acknowledgealmost at the same time,
what is really importantis that you don't jump
to problem solving tooearly. How do you
know if it is too early?

When you find yourself
explaining the same thingover and over, or the
person is just not listeningand continues to interrupt,
the person isn't readyto deal with the problem.
If this occurs, go backto the acknowledgment
component.

Remember that ALL four
components are necessary toeffective defusing.
To illustrate, another storyis in order.

I had the opportunity
to deliver a defusinghostility seminar to
a group of people. In thatgroup was a manager,
who we will call Roger. Rogerliked the course, and
said he found it veryvaluable.

About a year later, Roger
called me up, and said hewanted me to deliver
the seminar to his staff. Iagreed and we set up
a few seminars.

At one of those seminars,
I talked about theimportance of acknowledgment,
and was talking aboutusing empathy.
Several of the staff there foundthis quite amusing, and
were whispering to oneanother. I was
curious as to what was happening (Ialways like a good joke),
and at break time, askedthe two people what they
found amusing. One of thefellows responded:

"Well, now we know where
Roger got that empathystuff."

His tone indicated that
this was not a completelypositive statement, so
I asked what he meant. Hereplied:

"Well, let me put it this
way. I go into Roger'soffice to complain about
the antiquated computerequipment. After
I explain how bad it is, and thatwe need to do something
about it, Roger usuallysays something like "You
seem really frustratedabout this". Then
I explain that I am frustrated,and we must do something
about the equipment. Roger will say something
like "It must be veryfrustrating". After
a few minutes, I usually giveup.

Now, the problem with
Roger is he glommed on to theacknowledgment part,
but didn't figure out he hadto refocus and problem-solve,
or he would come offas a bit of an idiot.
He didn't use all of theCARP components.
He appeared less than genuine. Itwas clear to staff that
ole Roger wasn't preparedto be helpful or do anything
useful.

If you think about it,
it is rather amazing thanRoger hasn't been throttled
by his staff!

r Principles of
Defusing

At this point we are going
to look at twelveprinciples that you can
use to guide your defusingefforts. In the
next chapter we will move to muchmore specific actions
and phrases you can use.

r Principle 1: Deal
With The Feelings First

A fundamental principle
of defusing is that youmust deal with the anger
and frustration first,since an angry person
tends to think unclearly, andless rationally.
Empathy statements and questionsare effective ways to
acknowledge theperson'feelings.

r Principle 2: Avoid
Coming Across As Bureaucratic

Traditionally, government
and government employees,or those in publicly
funded school systems havebeen viewed as unfeeling
and uncaring, and overlyformal and officious.
Some believe that if theyare aloof, very formal,
and talk in complicatedlanguage, they will gain
more respect from clients. Unfortunately, the exact
opposite is the case. Themore bureaucratic you
sound, the more likely youare to infuriate the
person you are dealing with.

We know that the more
a person sees you as a gearin the bureaucratic machinery,
the more he/shetreat you like an object.
And this means, moreabuse. However, if you
come across as a real humanbeing, with a name, and
feelings, the hostileindividual is less likely
to aim anger and hostilebehaviour at you.

A second reason to consider
relates to the sourceof the person's anger.
Although they may expresstheir frustration in
ways that seem very personalto you, in the form of
slurs, and other attacks,their anger is primarily
about the system they areinteracting with.
You are just a handy target. The more they see you
as "that system" the morethey are likely to direct
their frustrations atyou.

When dealing with parents
or members of the public,avoid coming across as
bureaucratic. It's betterto express a bit of personality,
smile, and use theperson's name, and your
name if possible. Alsoavoid bureaucratic language,
or specializededucational jargon.
For example, rather thanreading from a school
or board policy, explain itin common language, while
making the original textavailable. Stay
away from harsh language that canbe interpreted as inflexible
(see section oncooperative language).
And stay away from theexpression "It's against
policy", or anythingsimilar. If you
need to explain a policy,introduce your explanation
with something like:

"Let me explain how we
usually do things. We askthat you..."

In other words, talk like
a live human being, not abureaucrat. You
can say whatever you need to sayin a helpful, cooperative
and human way. You don'tneed to be the bureaucrat.

By the way, many members
of the public expect youto be cold, distant,
and formal. Some may notexpect you to be nice
or respectful. The have verylow expectations of you
even before you have met. By not fitting these
expectations, you throw theangry person off.

r Principle 3: Each
Situation Is Different

While you can use this
book, or take a seminar tohelp you with defusing,
the bottom line is thateach person you deal
with is slightly different. One person may respond
very well to a gentleapproach. Another
person may respond to a firmtone, while someone else
may require you to bealmost aggressive.
You must use your judgement andexperience, since you
are the one interacting withthe person.

What this means is that
you must observe the personcarefully, watching to
see if anything inparticular is working.
If you try several empathyresponses and the person
gets more hostile, eitheryou are misphrasing your
responses (tone, words),or, empathy just isn't
going to work with thatperson. You decide.
You try out techniques, andlook for their effect.
If it works, keep doing itand if it doesn't try
something different.

r Principle 4: Strive
To Control The Interaction

Your two major tasks when
dealing with a hostileperson are to acknowledge
their feelings andattempt to get them to
start responding to you. Often, you will be doing
both at the same time. Remember that if you
can't get control, you can'taccomplish anything.

r Principle 5: Begin
Defusing Early

In an earlier section
we discussed the escalationcycle, and how angry
interactions tend to escalatewith time, unless one
person gets off themerry-go-round.
The more the situation escalates,the more time, energy
and upset it is going tocreate. So, you
want to begin defusing early. Infact, you can pre-empt
angry attacks by takingcontrol of the interaction
immediately (be thefirst person to speak),
and empathize, even beforethe angry person has
had a chance to launch thefirst salvo. One
thing that will help you defuseearly is to look for
non-verbal indications thatyour client is upset,
as they approach you. Ifthey look tense, glance
at their watch, scowl, etc,then you should be particularly
sure that youdefuse immediately.

r Principle 6:
Be Assertive, Not Aggressive Or Passive

Being assertive means
that you act in a confidentway, and that you talk
calmly but firmly, ifnecessary. It also
means that your physicalposture must be confident
rather than too passiveor aggressive.

If you have taken an assertiveness
training course,you will doubtless be
familiar with assertivelanguage such as:

"When you yell at me,
I feel upset. I would likeyou to stop yelling,
or I am going to end ourconversation."

or

"When you get too close
to me, I feel trapped. Iwould like you to step
back, or I am going to askyou to leave."

We DO NOT suggest you
use this type of languagewith angry clients.
It is fine with people withwhom you have relationships,
but remember that theangry client isn't particularly
interested in yourfeelings. They
are concerned about their ownfeelings, and want to
hear you recognize themrather than vice versa.

So, we want to leave out
references to our ownemotions, for the most
part. We will look morecarefully at this when
we talk about assertivelimit-setting.

Now, let's look at aggressiveness
and passivity. Most of us know how to
be aggressive. Theaggressive person uses
very harsh language, a toneof voice that sounds
angry, and projects aphysically confrontational
stance. Note that weinclude any expressions
of frustration in thiscategory of behaviour,
such as sighing, rolling theeyes, etc. That's
aggressive too.

The problem with aggressive
behaviour is that itinvites confrontation
and argument. If you want tospend half an hour arguing
over some off-topicpoint, or if you want
to put yourself at riskphysically, then be aggressive.
If, however, youwant to deal with the
other person professionallyand quickly, and increase
your own safety, then befirm, assertive and calm.

At the other end of the
spectrum is passivity. Passive people tend not
to stand up for themselves,use a tone of voice that
is whiny or weak-sounding,and tend to use a body
posture that lookspowerless. Some
people believe that the morepassive you are the less
likely people are to benasty to you. The
problem with this is thatpassivity will entice
a bully to redouble theirefforts at intimidation.
They will sense yourdiscomfort, and continue
to attack if they feel youare off balance or weak.

Again, assertiveness is
the key. Firm butcooperative language
and tone is the best choiceand avoids creating confrontations,
or appearinglike you have a "kick
me" sign on your butt.

r Principle 7: If
You Lose Control of Yourself,You
Lose, Period

Perhaps the very worst
thing you can do with ahostile person is to
lose control over your ownemotions, or , more specifically
your behaviour. When you allow yourself
to get angry and respondaggressively, you are
going to have an argument ora physical confrontation.
If you get angry andmake a snarky remark,
or use hostile body language,you will simply provoke
the person to continue.

What we stress here is
that while you are allowedto be angry or upset
with a parent or member of thepublic, it is not usually
in your own interest to"take it out" on that
person. It isn't so much anissue of what's right
or what's wrong...it's a verypractical issue.
Allow yourself to get yourbuttons pushed, and you
are letting yourself in fora string of hassles that
you don't need. Anotherpoint to remember - because
of your position youhave less leeway to express
your anger with aparent, and not suffer
negative consequences.Parents, however can
express their anger in a nastymanner without having
to deal with those sameconsequences.

Normally, when we talk
about self-control, we talkabout anger control,
but there is another issue. Hostile people don't
just do things that contributeto your anger.
They also do things that areintimidating. So
self-control also involveslearning how to control
your behaviour when someoneis trying to intimidate
you.

It is absolutely essential
that you pay attentionto controlling your own
reactions. You may not beable to completely control
your own anger, but atleast you can make sure
that you don't communicateyour anger in ways that
will make the situationworse.

r Principle 8:
What You Focus On, You Get More Of

Sometimes I think this
a general principle of lifeand not just a defusing
principle. It seems likewhen you focus your attention
on something, you getmore of it. When
people focus on doing work ratherthan results, they get
more work. When peoplethink about food all
the time, they tend to eat alot.

With respect to hostile
situations, this principlehas a specific application.
When a hostile personbrings up red-herrings
that have little to do withthe reason you are dealing
with them, you have oneof two choices.
The first is to sidestep thered-herring and NOT focus
much on it. The secondis to "dignify" the red-herring
by talking aboutit. If you focus
on the red-herring, you willencourage the person
to talk more about it. Whenyou do NOT focus on it,
you are less likely toencourage the person
to continue on that theme.

But we have previously
stated that it is importantto acknowledge the angry
and frustrated feelings ofa parent. Is this
not focusing on something thatwe don't want more of?
Yes and no. The purpose ofacknowledging is to show
that you are beingattentive and understanding,
without going into anydepth about all the details
of the person'sfeelings or story.
That is why the CARP modelspecifies that after
acknowledging, you REFOCUSback to the problem.
So you acknowledge and moveon. Acknowledge
and move on.

r Principle 9: Don't
Supply Ammunition

Lord knows, a hostile
person can dredge up enoughammunition by themselves
without your help. You canbe sure that if you sigh,
roll your eyes, showfrustration, mutter,
or do similar things, you makeit easier for the verbal
abuser. Your words andactions can also be used
against you if the personchooses to lodge a complaint
with someone else inthe organization
For example, when you slam thephone down noisily on
an obnoxious caller, youencourage the person
to complain to someone, andclaim that you slammed
the phone down, or you wererude. And then
you have to explain, and get morefrustrated with the situation.
If you are ateacher, do you really
want to spend timeexplaining to the principal
what has happened? Youdon't need the hassle.

Things that you say can
also be used as ammunitionagainst you and your
organization. Be aware thatsome hostile people will
try to get you to agree tosomething, so they can
use that agreement as aweapon when talking to
another staff member. Forexample, a person complains
to you that Jim, acolleague of yours, gave
him the wrong information. Without looking into
it you reply "Well, obviouslyJim was mistaken".
The person you are talking tomay very well go back
to Jim and quote you or saysomething like "Even
[your name] thinks you'rewrong, your very own
staff".

See the problem?
So, one thing you want to thinkabout is what kinds of
things you say and do thatmight be used in the
attack on you, or on anotherperson.

r Principle 10:
Don't Ask Questions You Don't Want To Hear Answers
To

Questions are an important
tool in defusing. Butoften people will ask
questions, when they reallydo not want to deal with
the answers, or spend anytime on the answers.
The best way to illustratethis is with an example
I often use in my seminars.

Parent: Isn't it
obvious? You failed my son! Isee you giving these
non-green people whatthey want. And
I'm the only green person here...so I'd
have to be an idiot not to noticeyour
racist attitudes...[and on and on].

The Principal wanted to
show that she was concernedabout the parent's remarks,
and wanted him to knowthat they were being
taken seriously. Presumably,the idea was that the
parent would realize theemployee was concerned
and would calm down.

Unfortunately, look what
happened. The parent madean accusation of bias,
which we will presume wasuntrue. The Principal,
by asking the question,opened the door for more
discussion which clearlywas not in anyone's best
interests. Note also howthis fits in with Principle
Nine above. Theeducator focused on the
accusation of racism, andgot more of it.

Now, in some situations,
it may be appropriate toask the above question.
It depends on thesituation. You
need to judge whether there isanything to be gained
by asking such a question. If you NEED to ask it,
then do so, but be awarethat it encourages the
client to continue on thetopic, rather than on
the problem the parent ishaving in the first place.

r Principle 11:
Avoid Inadvertent Errors

I know that you don't
intentionally say things topeople to make them angrier
or more hostile. Manyhostile situations escalate
because the employeedoes not realize that
he or she is saying or doingsomething that doesn't
come across as helpful asintended. An example:

Someone calls asking for
Marlene. Marlene is out,so you inform the caller
that a message can beleft. The caller
complains about being given therun-around and how long
everything is taking. Youinform the person that
you will check to see if youcan do something for
them and put them on hold. Ittakes you several minutes
to find the file. Whenyou get back to the phone,
the customer explodesabout the wait.

What a surprise!
You may have been trying to behelpful, but the caller
TOLD you they were angryabout the time everything
takes. Is it anysurprise that they got
angrier, having to wait SOMEMORE? Not really.
You inadvertently made thingsworse by trying to be
helpful in the wrong way.

If you want to get really
good at defusing, youneed to view your own
behaviour AS IT APPEARS tothe other person.
It may be that what you thinkwill be helpful, from
your perspective, may be seenas negative by the person
you are speaking to. Think like the other
person, or put yourself intheir position.
That can help.

Here are some additional
sample phrases that may bewell meaning, but will
escalate the interaction:

"You know, your child
isn't the only one in theschool""If we made an exception
for you, then we wouldhave to make an exception
for everyone"

We will discuss this further
when we examineconfrontational vs. cooperative
language, and thenotion of "hot phrases".

r Principle 12:
Avoid High Risk, High Gain Behaviour

High risk, high gain behaviour
is behaviour that,when it works, is very
effective in defusing. Whenit doesn't work it escalates
the conflict to anextreme degree.
For example, telling someone to bequiet may be effective
in some situations, and theother person may realize
that he is actinginappropriately. But
for many people, being told tobe quiet is like being
told to shut up, and isbound to escalate the
situation.

Another example is humour.
Humour can be a greattechnique to defuse a
situation, when it works. Ifyou can say something
that gets the other person tosmile or laugh, you will
probably defuse thesituation. However
if you try humour and the otherperson doesn't think
it's funny, they will thinkyou just aren't taking
them seriously. Then theywill be really mad.
High risk, high gain.

r Food For Thought

1. Take a look at the
following situation. Whileit isn't an education
example, the principlesapply to almost any situation.
Consider the question: Why did the
customer blow up?

A workplace, health
and safety inspector discoversthat a manufacturing
machine is unsafe. Fixingthe machine is going
to cost the owner thousandsof dollars, and he is
upset and angry. Afterworking with the
owner, the inspector finally getsthe owner to calm down
and give in. As theinspector is leaving
he says: "Oh, by the way, I amgoing to be back
in two weeks to make sure youhave kept your promise."
The owner startsshouting.
Why did the customer blow up?

2. Make a list of statements
and phrases that soundbureaucratic. Promise
yourself you will avoidthese phrases.

3 Go back to our humorous
example on pages 39-40. In this real life
example, the approach worked. What would have happened
had it not worked? Whatgeneral principles can
you suggest regarding theuse of humour?